The Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria was established in December 2010 in implementation of Austria’s international legal obligation set out in the “Washington Agreement” to restore and maintain known and unknown Jewish cemeteries in Austria. For this purpose, the Fund, established under the auspices of the National Council, is allocated an annual sum of one million Euros by the Federation over a period of twenty years.

Jewish cemeteries are special places of remembrance; many of them are of significant cultural and historical value. During the years of Nazi rule countless graves were desecrated, the names of the dead extinguished. Following the expulsion of the Jewish communities and the murder of their members, for decades the Jewish cemeteries in Austria were left to fall to ruin. The only cemeteries still in use today are those in places where Jewish communities were reestablished after 1945.

Starting in 2001, the Jewish Community Vienna – the owner of the majority of the cemeteries – commissioned the systematic recording and cataloguing of the Jewish cemeteries in Austria. In addition, the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments examined the cemeteries to see which were worthy of protected status and included over 60 of them in the so-called Ordinance 2a of the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments. With the assistance of the Jewish Cemeteries Fund, these cemeteries will be saved from dilapidation.